Thurston's Haze

But it’s all in your head. I implore you not to tell because you’ll regret it. It’s happened before. But where is that memory in your thick skull now? Lost in the muddle of sleepless thought. You call it thought, but I’d call it something else. I can’t think of the word. You’ve been tossing in bed, thinking your sleepless thoughts, and finally, through the humming cacophony that you didn’t even notice until now that it’s stopped, you resolve to let the memory into someone else’s head (but we know that “memory” implies a past and that you only believe in the present). Tomorrow. In this silence that you’ve allowed by ceasing to worry, you fall asleep. If you can even call that state in which you dream those dreams sleep. But I can’t think of another word for it.

You won’t listen to me, I know, you can’t. Because I have no voice. No mouth at all. I may not have eyes either, but I know you better than anyone. I live next to you- I sleep with you. I gaze over your shoulder as you write your poetry. Only I know that you’re a poet. You can’t hide it from everyone. Not from me… not from your own shadow. Not from someone without eyes or a mouth to speak. I’m the ideal hermetic vessel for your secrets.

It’s the afternoon now. Almost time for a prince to wake from slumber. To lumber out of his cave and into the light. But before he leaves, I will describe how beautiful he looks as his eyes twitch to an unseen dream. One he’ll forget before he gets the chance to write it down. He sleeps in the same position that he will sleep in eternally. Arms crossed like in a coffin. Porcelain face like that of a corpse; peaceful and inanely profound. The white virgin sheets crumple around his body in stark contrast to the gray stained walls of his bedroom. Books lie in neglected piles on the dusty brown carpet. The walls are cold and bare. The black curtains that cover the window can block out the sun, but not the noise from the busy street. He soundly sleeps. But is about to wake up. I can tell because the corner of his mouth subtly lifts and relaxes.

My favorite time of every day is watching my human wake up. It’s the time when I feel closest to him. A time when he is only conscious of himself, almost drowning in his surroundings. He tries to hold onto his dreams as they slip through his grasp, like holding onto the edge of a cliff to save your life. But this desire to hold on slowly fades into a hollow reluctant apathy. He only sees himself in the mirror, without judgment, scorn or love. I imagine that’s much like how I see him. If the light is just right, I can see myself fall over his face, making him even more beautiful… the way we melt together without scorn or love.

He walks down a street that may as well be dark and dismal because he’s too absorbed in himself to notice it. But it isn’t dark or dismal, in fact it’s a beautiful day. What some might call beautiful; the sun is perched high, birds chirp and a fresh breeze. But to him, the breeze is only as stifling as his intentions, the sun is what forced him out of bed and the birds only remind him that he will never be able to sing.

Pull yourself out of it sir, you worry too much. You say a man must follow his heart, but I say a heart has no eyes and to follow him is to follow blindly. He’ll only lead you astray. You know that, but where is that precious memory now? Do you sleep on them like pillows? He drags his heel at every third step. Not quite sloppily dressed, not quite properly shaven. Not young, not old. Eyes somewhere in between brown and blue… a medium build and regular height. So where is he going? He’s on the third mile of a walk to somewhere. Speeding up as he goes, his chest puffs out a little more at every step. A bead of sweat gathers here and another one there. And suddenly he falls pale as if everything went dark and silent inside of him. As if his cells were revolting against each other. He spins, takes a few steps back in the direction he came from. Stops. Turns. Looks at his worn boots and then to a sky that he just realized was blue. Then at a watch that he isn’t wearing. He goes on. I follow him as I always have and will.

His heel scrapes at every second step now as he pushes on with his hands forced down into his pockets, his brow forced down to his eyes, and his mouth twitches as exactly the same time you see a flash in his brown-blue eyes. He walks as if his body was full of helium and his feet of lead. We wonder what goes on in that head. It seems as though we’re going in the direction of a cemetery. I remember reading a letter over your shoulder. It told you about a funeral that already happened. I recall that you weren’t invited. Who was it? A family member that you didn’t even know, who you haven’t seen anywhere outside of faded childhood memories. So what do you care?

I don’t want to go in. I don’t want to be reminded of all those sad shadows that still cling to bodies… piles of dust. Doomed to be forever underground. Shadows don’t die you know. They are only born. And I was born to you my love. I accent every tear that falls from your eyes and every crease that makes up your smile. If I could only whisper in your ear… don’t open that gate!

He opens the gate. Staggered in the same way he staggered out of his cave. With head of helium and feet of lead. Or is it cement… is my love wearing cement shoes? Do you know why cemeteries are so much more eerie at nighttime? Because that’s the only time shadows can find their way out of the ground. Night time is the uniting of all shadows to form the One. But there’s no need to be nervous. You need us. We are the night and we make the day the day. Are there shadows in heaven? Of course there are!

He has already found the tombstone and is standing in front of it, not knowing what to do with his body. He probably wonders why he came here. He probably realizes that a dead body has no need for any more secrets. That it’s coffin is already overflowing with an abundance of them. That it can’t hear him anyway. He realizes that he has to pee and that three miles is too long to wait. So he finds a tree and relieves himself, only to find out too late that it might be considered rude, even blasphemous, to relieve one’s self in a graveyard. An old man solemnly let him know this with a hurt and disgusted stare. Thurston now remembers how people used to call him Thirsty, and why he hated it so much. It’s moments like this that he wants to drink himself up and disappear. Humiliation, shame… always thirsty from the worst kind of poverty of the soul. These are his own words. He’s always been melodramatic.

He buries himself and walks home and into his bathroom to stare at a reflection he doesn’t understand. With scorn. Not love.